"...Let me guess."
The group hadn't even had time to catch their breath. The moment they rematerialized inside the Black Sphere's room, Ryuuen Kakeru's distinctive voice cut through the air.
He was slumped against the wall, cold sweat still beading on his forehead — but his eyes held not a single trace of the relief that comes with surviving a near-death experience.
"That half-dead look on all your faces — did you wipe out, or did you scrape through by pure luck?"
"Heh."
Sakayanagi Arisu, equally collapsed on the floor, let out a soft, quiet laugh.
She didn't bother rising to Ryuuen's bait. Instead, she simply raised one hand and let her fingertips trace lightly over her own neck — smooth, unblemished, pristine.
No wound. No blood.
Even the tightness in her chest — that breathless, stuttering pressure her heart had hammered out in the heat of danger — was gone without a trace.
External injuries confirmed healed.
Then...
Sakayanagi's gaze shifted. She pressed both palms flat against the floor and tried to push herself upright.
No luck. Her legs were just as heavy as ever. The familiar, bone-deep helplessness hadn't shifted so much as an inch — not even now that her wounds were gone.
It can regenerate severed limbs, but it can't fix a congenital genetic defect... Or is that something that costs points?
"Tch."
Sakayanagi pursed her lips in mild displeasure — and promptly redirected that displeasure toward a convenient target:
"Isn't that rather obvious? Ryuuen-kun."
"Without a certain someone who does nothing but charge headfirst into things — we achieved a full-party survival and cleared the mission perfectly."
Ryuuen raised an eyebrow.
He peeled himself off the floor and rolled the newly-restored joints of his previously-severed torso with a satisfying crack. A derisive snort escaped him.
"Don't flatter yourself. Looking at how pale and sickly you are, it's pretty obvious you weren't the one who carried this."
"Likewise."
Sakayanagi refused to yield a single inch, elegantly smoothing the wrinkles from her disheveled skirt.
"Then by simple process of elimination, Ryuuen-kun — who do you think was the biggest liability in this exam? And who was it that threw their life away like a clown right out of the gate?"
The tension between the two of them was thickening fast.
Kushida Kikyo and Ichinose Honami, however, were in no mood to step in and play peacemaker.
Both girls were still submerged in the aftermath of what they'd just lived through.
Even if logic told them that each of them had three lives to spare — even with Ryuuen standing right there, breathing and whole — the image refused to leave. The arterial spray. The brutal, sickening sight of a human body being torn apart.
It had completely shattered the worldview sixteen years of living had built for them.
Fortunately, the kind of people who made it into this school were not ordinary.
After a brief silence and a necessary release of emotion, reason slowly reclaimed its footing.
"Since the exam is over..."
Ichinose forced down the unease still coiling in her chest and stepped toward the center of the room, reaching out to tentatively touch the surface of the Black Sphere.
"Can we... leave now?"
"Results first."
At her touch, a ring of ripples bloomed across the sphere's surface.
The familiar white text materialized:
[Since you all made it back alive — let's begin the scoring.]
"Scoring?"
Kushida Kikyo drifted closer, still wary, but undeniably curious.
"Actually — do we even score anything this round? It was Chris-kun who killed the monster, wasn't it?"
As she said it, she glanced over at Chris.
As if on cue, the Black Sphere answered her.
[Ichinose Honami: 0 points.]
[Kushida Kikyo: 0 points.]
[Comment: Aside from screaming and trembling, were you two decorative mascots stationed outside the convenience store? Try harder next time. Don't be utterly useless ornaments.]
Both girls stared at the merciless, cutting commentary — faces flushing red — humiliated, and completely unable to argue back.
Then the screen changed.
[Ryuuen Kakeru: 0 points.]
[Comment: Admirable courage. Catastrophic thinking. Even as a meat shield, you could at least try to last a little longer. You have two more lives left to throw away recklessly — treasure them, you reckless brute.]
"Tch."
Ryuuen clicked his tongue but didn't bother arguing. There was nothing to argue.
"Since Ryuuen-kun scored zero..."
Chris spoke up at the right moment, cutting through the awkward silence.
"Then all we need to do is check whether Sakayanagi-san scored anything, and we'll know exactly how this exam's point system works."
"Whether it's 'contribution-based' — or 'kill-based.'"
"I'm rather curious myself."
Sakayanagi Arisu, still seated on the floor, extended a hand toward Chris without warning.
Under his mildly puzzled gaze, Sakayanagi arranged her features into an expression of tragic, delicate helplessness — the kind that somehow managed to be both pitiful and beautiful at once:
"As you've seen, I have a congenital heart condition and my legs don't work properly."
"The battle just now completely exhausted what little stamina I had... I think that much is rather obvious, isn't it? Or is Chris-kun going to be heartless enough to refuse a small request from a sickly girl?"
Chris's eyebrow ticked up slightly.
He had to admit — even knowing full well it was an act, Sakayanagi Arisu's face made it devastatingly effective.
He took her hand.
"I half-expected your legs to have healed along with everything else."
Once she was steadied against his arm, Sakayanagi rested one hand lightly over her chest, her expression tinged with something that looked almost like genuine regret.
"I can feel that my body is much lighter, and the pain from the wound is gone. But it seems GANTZ isn't quite as generous as you might have hoped."
With that, she let the topic go — and turned her gaze toward the Black Sphere.
"Then — shall we go ahead and test your theory, Chris-kun~?"
Ichinose Honami noticed the two of them moving and quietly stepped aside to clear their line of sight.
On the surface of the Black Sphere, the text flickered once more.
[Sakayanagi Arisu: 0 points.]
[Comment: For someone with a physical disability, that shot was passable. But that's all it was.]
Zero, again.
Finally, the screen settled on Chris's name.
[Chris: 3 points.]
[Cumulative Score: 3 points.]
[Comment: Whether it was luck or skill — only those who survive have the right to be evaluated. Keep it up. You're 97 points away from freedom.]
A short silence fell over the room as everyone stared at the number on the screen.
"That thing was that dangerous — and it was only worth three points?"
"At the one-to-ten exchange rate the sphere mentioned before... that would be thirty Class Points?" Ichinose Honami said slowly.
"The real question right now is whether anyone actually knows what thirty Class Points is even worth." Sakayanagi Arisu leaned lightly against Chris's arm — apparently having decided he was a serviceable substitute for her missing cane — and added in a leisurely tone:
"Though I imagine we can guess. It's most likely tied to our future class rankings, one way or another..."
"If S-Points can actually be converted into Class Points!"
Kushida Kikyo's eyes lit up, her voice picking up with undisguised excitement:
"Then doesn't that mean Class D is already a step ahead? And on top of that, there's two of us..."
"Naive."
Ryuuen cut off Kushida's daydream without mercy.
"Sure, this is obviously a perk designed to give bottom-tier classes a leg up. But who says these obviously high-value points have to go toward your class ranking?"
His gaze burned into Chris as he continued:
"And even if you did convert them — it's thirty points. Without the school publishing a rulebook, who knows if we're working with a hundred-point scale or a thousand-point scale? Only an idiot wastes hard-earned points on pocket change like that."
"What do you say."
He was clearly curious — how would this previously invisible, unremarkable Class D nobody choose to play his hand?
Sakayanagi Arisu tilted her head just slightly, watching Chris from close range, as if trying to read the microexpressions crossing his face.
With all eyes on him, Chris paused for half a second.
"I'll hold onto them for now."
"We can use the weapons for free right now, but who knows about later. Once we're more seasoned, maybe we'll have to spend points to buy ammo or repair equipment."
It was an airtight answer.
Kushida Kikyo nodded along eagerly. Then, as if something had just occurred to her, her voice took on an urgent edge:
"Right! Didn't the sphere say points can be used to buy back your own life? Maybe one hundred points is the threshold!"
"If you save up enough, maybe you can opt out of these terrifying exams entirely — from now all the way to graduation..."
She glanced at Sakayanagi beside her and quickly added:
"Or even fix physical injuries? Like Sakayanagi-san's heart condition..."
"After all, this is a place that can casually bring people back from the dead — buying a healthy body with a few points doesn't seem like a stretch, does it? And if we have to run team exams again, having a healthy teammate..."
"Stop."
Ryuuen waved his hand with undisguised impatience.
"We'll deal with the future when it gets here. Nobody knows if the next session will even have the same people."
"What if next time it's organized by class?"
"For everyone who isn't in Class A — isn't it a tremendous advantage to have the crippled princess stay exactly as she is?"
The words were naked cruelty. He wasn't even bothering to dress it up.
Ichinose frowned, clearly on the verge of pushing back against Ryuuen's brutally pragmatic logic — but when she glanced over and caught the unbothered smile on Sakayanagi's face, the words died on her tongue.
Sakayanagi Arisu gave a small, serene smile.
Her gaze drifted past the group toward the door — which had, at some point, swung silently open on its own.
"Rather than debating things that don't matter right now," she said softly, "the more pressing priority might be to check on the situation outside."
"For example... contacting the people who were with us when this started, and confirming how long we were gone from the real world."
"Oh! Right! Phones!"
Ichinose Honami snapped back to reality and immediately dug her phone out of her pocket.
The signal bars — which had been showing 'No Service' before — were now full and steady.
"There's a signal! Um — should we exchange contact info while we're here? It'll make sharing information easier in the future."
No one objected.
In a life-or-death game like this, even the most thick-headed person understood the value of a shared intelligence network.
They swapped numbers and contact details quickly.
Once that was done, Sakayanagi Arisu gave a small, satisfied nod and put her phone away.
Then, without warning, she turned to face Kushida Kikyo — her voice dropping into a gentler register:
"Kushida-san. As you've seen, I have difficulty getting around on my own. Walking back to the dormitory by myself is rather out of the question."
"So — would it be alright if I borrowed your classmate Chris-kun to escort me back?"
"Eh?"
Kushida Kikyo reflexively glanced at Chris — then broke into a bright, cheerful smile.
"Of course! We should all be looking out for each other~!"
"..."
Chris looked at the two girls who had just negotiated his entire evening between themselves without consulting him — and let out a long, resigned sigh.
"Shouldn't you at least..."
"...ask the person in question first?"
Sakayanagi Arisu said nothing.
She simply tilted her head back and blinked up at him — once, slowly — with the most insufferably serene expression imaginable.
____
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